Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789

1877-0428 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Dr. Zafer Bekirogullari of Cognitive Counselling, Research & Conference
Services C-crcs.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.473
International Conference on Education and Educational Psychology (ICEEPSY 2012)
Towards Understanding the Positive Effect of Playing Violent Video Games on
Childrens Development

Adel M. Agina*
a
, Robert D. Tennyson
b

a
University of Tripoli, Faculty of Medical Technology, Tripoli, P.O.Box: 78619 (Tripoli/Gorjey), Libya
b
University of Minnesota, Department of Educational Pscychology, 56 E River Road, USA
Abstract
Problem Statement: In the literature, playing the violent games still considers as double-edged sword (Agina & Kommers,
2008). On one edge, the focus was on the aspect of using video games in teaching, social settings, and improving human-
computer interfaces (e.g., Malone 1981; ...). On the other edge, the focus was on the negative outcomes and later effects
(e.g., Griffiths & Hunt 1998; ...). However, the literature clearly lacks investigating the positive effect of playing violent
games on childrens development processes when children act and react alone and without humans external regulation.
Purpose of Study: Given the fact that the world is clearly unable to stop the production of the violent games as avoiding
children to play violent games is almost impossible, the present study aimed towards understanding the positive effect of
playing violent games on childrens development to clarify what the future research should highly take into account. Stated
differently, the present study was an attempt towards clarifying the importance of embedding violent arousal as a process of
learning.
Research Methods: Hundred children (50 boys, 50 girls) who, almost, daily played violent games were specifically selected.
Each child was given one hour to play with CAR-RACING and THE-PUNISHER. After the session, a Friendly-Chat-
Questionnaire, through nonhumns external regulator, was achieved with each child where all childrens utterances were
recorded and tabulated. An extra meeting with children was achieved after the entire session.
Findings: Childrens self-regulation and thinking-aloud verbalization were affected by the game heros gender; both were
fluctuated even among the same gender where boys showed higher level of violent arousal. Children also showed high level
of self-regulation when engaging them as deign-partners that confirmed Agina and Kommers (2008).
Conclusions: Despite the negative effect of playing violent games, violent arousal has positive effect on childrens
development especially self-regulation and thinking aloud to express their minds content. Thus, the most significant
question for the future research on childrens developmet is that: How can the violent arousal be safely transferred into
childrens learning settings to enable children to be Violent-Arousal-Learners through Violent-Arousal-Learning?
Keywords: Violent Games; Violent Arousal Learners/Learning; Self-Regulation; Thinking Aloud; Childrens Development
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Dr. Zafer Bekirogullari of Cognitive Counselling,
Research & Conference Services C-crcs.
Introduction
2. Introduction
Undoubtedly, one of the most important needs for children is playing that helps children, especially with
pleasure, to explore and learn many different and various things such as rules, social and coping skills. Since
1970 computer and video games were entered to the childrens world in which children were satisfied their
emotional needs actively whereas the main subject and content of these games is adventure (Gunter, 2002).
Technically, the visual and auditory coding is necessary for the full success of these games (Real, 1993) and the
main subject of those games is violence (Friedman, 1995). Some researchers (e.g., Greenfield, 1994; Sneed &
Runco, 1992; Gunter, 2002) believed that children especially boys interested to play challenging and
progressive games and they preferred computer and video games than watching TV and communicating with
peers. However, the childrens parents have negative attitude toward these games because they worried about
their behavior and academic achievement and skills. Much research (e.g., Anderson, Gentile & Buckley, 2007)
have shown that playing video games can be problematic for some youth such as children who spent more time
playing video games achieved lower grades over the course of the school year as compared with their peers who
played less frequently. These children also showed more aggressive impulses and were more likely to infer
hostile intent when none existed. This, in turn, was related to heightened levels of aggressive behavior. Other

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +218924887110; Fax: +218214809200
E-mail address: adelagina@yahoo.com; a.m.agina@utwente.nl; (www.adelagina.net) /Second Author: rdtennyson@gmail.com
781 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
research (e.g., Gentile, 2009)) has found that adolescents who were addicted to video games showed a variety
of psychosocial and health problems. Given these effects, it is not surprising that parents and teachers are most
concerned with violent games interfering with schoolwork, social skills, and exercises where many parents felt
that computer games activated negative emotions such as aggression, lose of environmental attention, and social
withdrawal (e.g., Kutner, L., A., Olson, C., K., Warner, D., E. & Hertzog, 2008). One of the main concerns that
had constantly risen against video and computer games is that most of games claimed to feature aggressive
elements. The issue is ever more important because new games like PUNISHER, DOOM, RESIDENT EVIL
and SILENT HILL are realistic violence and bloody games. Many other researchers (e.g., Chambers & Ascion,
1987; Griffith, 1999) claimed that most of the computer games are violent in nature and have no effect on
teenagers but young children can be affected by games especially on their behaviour. Up to data, playing the
violent games still considers as double-edged sword (Agina & Kommers, 2008). On one edge, the focus was on
the aspect of using the video games in teaching, social settings, and improving human-computer interfaces (e.g.,
Malone 1981; Pausch et al. 1994; Ju & Wagner 1997; Amory et al. 1999; Day et al. 2001; Durkin & Barber
2002; De Aguilera & Mndiz, 2003; Johnson & Wiles 2003; Lee et al, 2004; Fisch, 2005; Metaxas et al, 2005;
Al Mahmud et al, 2007; Grnbk et al, 2007). On the other edge, the focus was on the negative outcomes and
later effects (e.g. Griffiths & Hunt 1998; Anderson and Bushman 2001; Sherry 2001), and other different
aspects (e.g. Higuchi et al. 2005; Vandewater et al. 2004; Smith et al. 2003; Dietz 1998; Norris 2004;
Gottschalk 1995). Briefly, the problem of the violent game is that the gamers are always playing against the
rules in which a number of several studies tried to conceptualize the behavioral properties of games (e.g.,
Jrvinen 2003; Juul 2003; Klabbers 2003). Other studies have examined another aspects such as the
demographic, personality factors, motor functions and methodological tools (e.g. Griffiths et al.,2003; Griffiths
& Dancaster 1995; McClure & Mears 1984; Castel et al. 2005; Donchin 1995; Washburn 2003). Nowadays,
millions of people are engaging in multi-user gaming environments like MMOGs (Ducheneaut et al., 2005;
Griffiths, Davies, & Chappell, 2003; Griffiths et al., 2004; Woodcock, 2006; Yee, 2006); we can not stop them
to play as we can not prevent the production of those games.
1.1 What is Childrens Behavioral Regulation?
Specifically in Aginians studies (i.e., Agina, 2008; Agina & Kommers, 2008, Agina, Kommers &
Steehouder: 2011a; 2011b; 2011c; 2011d; and 2012; Agina, 2012; Agina, Tennyson, et al., in press), the
Childrens Behavioral Regulation (CBR) refers to the level of the childrens speech use, the differentiation
and difference between private speech, social speech, and thinking aloud, and the degree of the childrens
self-regulation learning and satisfaction during learning tasks when children act alone and without any
human-human interaction or social intervention during learning tasks.
1.2 The Effect of Violent Video Games on Childrens Development
According to Anderson and Bushman (2002), the violent video games influence aggression through short-
term and long-term effects. In the short-term, violent video games function as a situation variable that can
increase aggressive cognition, affect, and arousal, in turn leading to increased aggressive behavior. In the long-
term, violent video games can influence aggressive behavior by promoting aggressive beliefs and attitudes, and
creating aggressive schema, aggressive behavioral scripts and aggressive expectations; which, in turn, may bias
an individual's personality toward aggression. In other words, each violent video game episode may reinforce
the notion that aggression is an effective and appropriate way to deal with conflict and anger (Bushman &
Anderson, 2002). The most commonly used measure of aggressive behavior in the violent video game in the
literature is the modified Taylor Competitive Reaction Time Test (TCRTT), in which the participant is told that
he is competing with another participant (confederate) to see who can push a button faster upon the appearance
of a cue. After each trial, the loser receives an aversive punishment (e.g., a loud noise blast) and the winner
chooses the intensity of the punishment. The level of punishment intensity that the participant sets for his
opponent and the duration of the punishment are indicative of aggressive behavior. Wins and losses are
determined before the task begins, and the participant both receives and delivers punishments (for more details,
see Adachi & Willoughby, 2011).
3. The Present Study (The Research Problem and Main Question)
Remarkably, the negative outcomes of gaming, on one hand, is commonly reported (e.g. Piper et al., 2006;
Dillon et al., 2006; Sehaba & Estraillier, 2006; Bernhaupt et al., 2007; Svoen, 2007; Ravaja et al., 2007).
Therefore, there are several theoretical models that do not only describe and explain but also predict the
aggressive behaviour (e.g., Berkowitzs cognitive-neoassociation theory; Zillmans excitation transfer theory;
Huesmanns script theory). On the other hand, there is no yet such a model that focuses on the positive
782 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
contribution and effect of the violent arousal to childrens development. This subject is not only motivated but
also challenged because there is an obvious contradiction between what the researchers believe about the violent
arousal and the ultimate goal of self-regulation. Precisely, the problem of the current study lies behind the fact
that most of the gaming researchers believe that playing in cooperation with another player is greatly effecting
arousal, where the effect, per se, can be drastically impacted when the player knows that the other object on the
screen is physically controlled by a human. This means that involving human, as an external regulator, for
controlling/regulating arousal by a real human is inevitable. Clearly, this makes a significant
collision/confliction with the ultimate goal of self-regulation, which is eliminating the humans external
regulation (for more details, see Aginians studies). Stated differently, the literature clearly lacks investigating
the positive effect of playing violent games on childrens development especially when children act and react
alone and without humans external regulation. Thus, the present study tried to explore if there is an effect of
the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on Childrens Behavioral Regulation (CBR) through the following research
question: What is the effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on childrens behavioral regulation?
4. Material and Method
4.1 Participants
With closely cooperation with the childrens parents and teachers, participants were specifically selected
from ten different preschools in Tripoli (10 children from each preschool, five boys and five girls produced the
total of 50 boys and 50 girls, which were 100 participants with Mage = 5.7 years). All children spoke Libyan as
their native language, which is a hybrid of Arabic and Italian. Participants already started learn English in very
simple way (e.g., some songs, greetings, names of animals, fruits and vegetable, and so on with some other extra
terminologies that have almost daily use in the classroom such as Simple/Advanced Calculator, Ready, Do
It, and many others). To ensure the participants mental and physical health, the school medical records were
revised for all the participants to mainly ensure there is no sign for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD) or similar challenges such as the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) or problems with hearing or
vision like color blindness. The parents confirmation of their childrens almost-daily use of the violent games
was ensured during signing the consent to engage their children in the experiment.
4.2 Materials
Two different sets of stimulus material were used. The first set involves two of the most preferable violent
and bloody games among participants, namely:THE PUNISHER and CAR-RACING. The second set
involves two of peaceful tools namely: Microsoft-Paint and CHILD-CALCULATOR, which associated with
a Friendly-Chat-Questionnaire (FCQ) where the computer acts as an external regulator to control the FCQ
(Figure 1). The participants were so familiar with the violent games and were fluctuated in their familiarity with
the peaceful-tools. In specific, some children were so familiar with the peaceful-tools, others have good level of
experience, and others have a little experience, while others were novice (i.e., never experience them before).


Fig.1 the stimulus materials
4.3 The Experimental Design
There were four different sessions. Each session was recorded and all the utterances were tabulated.
Session-1 (Violent arousal through violent games): at the first hour (from 09:00 to 10:00), the participant
was given a chance to play alone with the proposed violent games (THE PUNISHER or CAR-RACING)
with full freedom to switch between them.
Session-2 (Nonviolent arousal through a thinking learning tool): at the second session (from 10:30 to
11:30), participant was asked to act alone (i.e., without his teacher as an external regulator). If the child
agreed, he attended a five-minute welcome session in the meeting room with the teacher and experimenter
783 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
but did not receive training on how to use the Child-Calculator given the fact that some children already
experienced it while others are novice (this learning tool is reserved for Aginians studies: Not for
commercial or public use). Instead, children were made aware that the game requires a smart player to
complete the task and that the teacher and experimenter were only waited outside the door to watch their
performance in order to reward them. Children were also made aware that neither their teacher nor the
experimenter would know the answers. If the child agreed, he was given a complete hour to play with the
peaceful-toll Child-Calculator, which allows the child to play along 40 minutes and used the last 20
minutes to run the FCQ. In specific, because no previous training was offered (as an effort to avoid any
human-human interaction, social intervention, or any external human regulation before the experiment), the
game began with the instruction "Touch the correct sign with your finger to start the game" spoken first by
the animated Princess and repeated by the animated Superman on a continual loop for five minutes or until
the child reacted. If the child did not react within five minutes, he ended the session denoted that the child
does not like to continue or he does not understand what he should do; otherwise the game started instantly
(Fig. 2, Picture-1). The system then introduced the tool Child-Calculator (Fig. 2, Picture-2) where the
Princess was verbally and clearly warned the child that she and Superman would like to play math-tasks with
him (the child) because he is very smart as his teacher recommended (as an effort to motivate the child to
engage instantly). The Child-Calculator (version-1) is a simple calculator with one levels of difficulties
where children could act with five math operations (+, -, <, >, =). Superman was verbally warned the child
that he (the child) has full freedom to play until the red-line (i.e., the time-line allotment), reaches him
(Superman) because he (Superman) will finish the session by ringing the bell. The child had had to listen to
the proposed task by the virtual teacher, construct the equation, and then answered it.


Fig.2 the child acts alone without humans external regulation

At the end of the session (i.e. after 40 minutes), Superman was, first, opened the conversation by informing
the child that he (Superman) and the Princess would like to chat with him (the child) about the game because he
(the child) showed high level of intelligence and could help to improve the game (regardless of his actual
achievement as a motivation for the child to respond exactly as the teachers did in the classroom). Superman
asked the child to touch him or the Princess to choose who is going to chat with him (the child). During this
chatting, the Princess/Superman asked the child 10 questions (five questions for the violent arousal and another
five questions for the nonviolent arousal). The child had had to answer each question within two minutes. After
each question, the Princess/Superman asked the child to touch the correct/incorrect sign if he would/wouldnt
like to continue chatting until the last question (Fig. 3, Picture-1). At the end of the FCQ, the Princess/Superman
moved to the last session (Fig. 3, Picture-2) where the child could choose his favorite piece of chocolate
(Snickers and Kinder-Surprise were the most preferable chocolate among the participants as their teachers
recommended).


Fig.3 the Friendly-Chat-Questionnaire (FCQ) and the game last session

Finally, the Princess and Superman thanked the participant and informed him that he did a very nice job with
high performance (regardless his actual performance) and told him to go to the experimenter who waiting
outside the door with a teacher to receive what he requested.
Session-3 (Nonviolent arousal through a drawing tool): at the third hour (from 12:00 to 13:00), each
participant was asked whether he would like to act with his teacher or alone. If the child agreed, he was given
another hour to play with the peaceful-tool Microsoft-Paint to draw what they want.
784 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
Session-4 (Face-to-Fact Meeting): during delivering the rewarded piece of chocolate the child already
requested, the experimenter was utilized this session to ask the child what was the best session he liked?
4.4 Measuring Childrens Verbalization
Because children did not receive any encouragement cues to talk during the progression, the present study
considered all the childrens verbalization as thinking aloud utterances given the fact that thinking aloud should
happen spontaneously; i.e., without previous instructions to do so (Aginians studies).
4.5 Exploring the Indication(s) of Childrens Self-Regulation
To explore whether the childrens self-regulation has effected by the violent vs. nonviolent arousal, the
present study relied on the childrens spontaneous reaction through the childrens answers of the FCQ. In
specific, if the children liked the nonviolent environment more than or equal to the violent environment, the
present study considered those children as having a sign of self-regulation and able to transfer that violent
arousal into their learning settings by themselves given the fact that those child realized, clearly, the difference
between the two environments. Otherwise, the present study considered those children as still needing an extra
regulation to be able to transfer the violent arousal into their learning setting.
4.6 Experimental Conditions
To explore whether there is a clear indication of violent arousal on childrens development, the participants
were divided into two different group/orders (i.e., the two different conditions of the experiment). In the first
order, the first 50 participants started with session-1 (the Violent arousal through violent games), followed by
the session-2 (nonviolent arousal through a thinking tool) and session-3 (nonviolent arousal through a drawing
tool), and ended with session-4 (i.e., the Face-to-Face-Meeting). In the second order, the second 50 participants
started with session-3, followed by session-2 and session-1, and ended by session-4. For the sake of the
simplicity, the present study defines the first order as VTD-Group and the second order as DTV-Group (Fig. 4).


Fig.4 the experimental conditions (Violent vs. Nonviolent Arousal)
4.7 Data Gathering
All data of the three sessions were gathered through revised the video records and tabulated whenever it was
needed. During the third session, the system automatically counted how many equations each child constructed
and answered correctly/incorrectly.
5. Procedure
At each preschool, the experiment started at 09:00 AM to avoid differences due to fatigue. Two children
were select per day where each child was acted alone in a separate room (i.e., each school required five days to
finish the experiment with ten children). Each room has a child-sized chair, an external touch-screenused to
avoid any possible coordination problems for the childrenconnected to a laptop computer with two hidden
portable video cameras. The first camera captured the entire environment, and the second offered a clear view of
the task on the screen and the childs face. An extra small microphone was connected to the second camera for
better audio recording. Children, however, were kept unaware of the cameras and the microphone to avoid a
problem of splitting attention that could lead to undesirable cognitive processes.
785 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
6. Result
6.1 4.1 The effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on children of the VTD-Group
The research question addressed was concerned the influence of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on
childrens behavioral regulation. Table (1) shows the influence of violent arousal vs. nonviolent arousal on
childrens of the VTD -Group while Table (2) shows the significant effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal
on childrens of the VTD-Group.
Table 1. The influence of violent arousal on childrens speech production (VTD-Group)
Number of Game Usage No of Speech Utterances Children Refuse to Play
Games Name
(Violent vs. Nonviolent
Arousal)
Boys
(n=50)
Girls
(n=50)
Boys
(n=50)
Girls
(n=50)
Boys
(n=50)
Girls
(n=50)
THE PUNISHER
167
(27%)
93
(19%)
35
(10%)
51
(13%)

0

0

CAR-RACING
203
(32%)
109
(22%)
67
(20%)
17
(.04%)

0

0
CHILD-
CALCULATOR
197
(31%)
203
(42%)
101
(29%)
227
(59%)

0

0
MICROSOFT PAIT
62
(10%)
81
(17%)
141
(41%)
93
(24%)

0

0
Total
629 486 344 388 0 0
()Represents the number the children switch on/off the game.
()Represents the number of the tasks the children achieved.
()Represents the number of the pictures the children made.

Table 2. The significant effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on the VTD-Group
Testing the significant between the violent vs. nonviolent of 2 df N p Result
1 The game usage (boys and girls) 34.219 3 1115 < 0.001 Significant
2 The speech utterances (boys and girls) 88.663 3 732 < 0.001 Significant
3 The game usage and speech utterances (only boys) 145.429 3 973 < 0.001 Significant
4 The game usage and speech utterances (only girls) 71.502 3 874 < 0.001 Significant
6.2 The effect of the nonviolent vs. violent arousal on children of the GTV-Group
The research question addressed was concerned the influence of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on
childrens behavioral regulation. Table (3) shows the influence of violent arousal vs. nonviolent arousal on
childrens of the DTV -Group while Table (4) shows the significant effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal
on childrens of the DTV-Group.
Table 3. The influence of nonviolent arousal on childrens speech production (DTV-Group)
Number of Game Usage No of Speech Utterances Children Refuse to Play
Games Name
(Nonviolent vs. Violent
Arousal)
Boys
(n=50)
Girls
(n=50)
Boys
(n=50)
Girls
(n=50)
Boys
(n=50)
Girls
(n=50)
CHILD-
CALCULATOR
447
(55%)
391
(51%)
234
(32%)
313
(40%)

0

0
MICROSOFT PAIT 91
(11%)
97
(13%)
277
(37%)
208
(26%)

0

0
THE PUNISHER 87
(10%)
59
(.08%)
137
(19%)
177
(22%)

0

7

CAR-RACING
193
(24%)
216
(28%)
88
(12%)
97
(12%)
9
(100%)
0
(100%)
Total 818 763 736 795 9 7
()Represents the number the children switch on/off the game.
()Represents the number of the tasks the children achieved.
()Represents the number of the pictures the children made.

Table (4). The significant effect of the nonviolent vs. violent arousal on the DTV-Group
Testing the significant between the nonviolent vs. violent of 2 df N P Result
1 The game usage (boys and girls) 8.694 3 1581 < 0.034 Significant
2 The speech utterances (boys and girls) 24.522 3 1531 < 0.001 Significant
3 The game usage and speech utterances (only boys) 207.278 3 1554 < 0.001 Significant
4 The game usage and speech utterances (only girls) 152.689 3 1558 < 0.001 Significant
786 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
6.3 Exploring the Indication(s) of Childrens Self-Regulation
The FCQ shows that the both violent and nonviolent arousals have a significant effect on children where
children in both conditions show almost the same reaction with slightly difference because of the novice
children regarding the use of the nonviolent arousal learning tools (Table 5).
Table 5. The Friendly-Chat Questionnaire (FCQ), by group


The friendly chat questionnaire
VTD-Group
(n = 50)
DTV-Group
(n = 50)
Questions about the violent arousal
(1) You feel anxiety if you do not play THE-PUNISHER or CAR- RACING everyday. 50 (100%) 50 (100%)
(2) You like all action games. 50 (100%) 50 (100%)
(3) You will not stop playing these games. 50 (100%) 50 (100%)
(4) You pay attention when your parents ask you to stop play these games. 9 (18%) 7(14%)
(5) If you got a problem in your school, do you apply what you have learnt from THE-
PUNISHER?
39(78%) 41(82%)
Questions about the nonviolent arousal
(6) The CHILD-CALCULATOR and MS-PAINT are easy to use. 45(90%) 43(86%)
(7) You like the CHILD-CALCULATOR and MS-PAINT. 50 (100%) 50 (100%)
(8) You will play the CHILD-CALCULATOR and MS-PAINT once again. 50 (100%) 50 (100%)
(9) You will recommend the CHILD-CALCULATOR and MS-PAINT to your friends 50 (100%) 50 (100%)
(10) You want one of your parents or your teacher to be with you to finish the tasks. 5(10%) 7(14%)

Despite, children in both groups felt anxiety if they did not play the violent games, all children in both groups
(100%) liked the nonviolent learning tools, they will play the nonviolent learning tools once again (100%), and ,
therefore, they will recommend the nonviolent learning tools (100%). More than that, most of the children in
both groups (55% and 43% respectively) did not need their external regulator during the progression to finish
the nonviolent tasks, which is the most significant indication of the effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal
on self-regulation. Despite those reactions, children in the VTD-Group (19 children: 38%)) preferred the
nonviolent session more the children in DTV-Group (17 children: 34) during the Face-To-Face Meeting as
shown in Table (6), which is an indication that children regulated themselves to understand the benefit of the
nonviolent learning tools.

The question during the meeting:
What was the best session (the violent or nonviolent)?

Violent Arousal Session

Nonviolent Arousal Session
VTD-Group 31 (62%) 19 (38%)
DTV-Group 33(66%) 17(34%)
7. Discussion
The present study started with the fact that the current research (Agina, 2012), simply, divided the childrens
entertainment into two main divisions, positive and negative. The positive entertainment represents the
educational and learning tools where young children gain extra benefit without hindering their behavioral
regulation. In contrast, the negative entertainment represents the violent arousal where childrens behavioral
regulation may negatively affect the society. However, the existing literature on violent arousal is clearly
focusing on aggression, as the worst childrens behavioral action, and violence, as the worst psychological
reaction. This result, however, has stated without investigating how that aggression and violence can be
positively transferred into childrens learning settings. In other words, if children are able to convey that
negative behavioral regulation into society, the research, then, should pay attention to: how can that negative
behavioral regulation (i.e., the violent arousal) be positively conveying into childrens learning settings in order
to enable children to become self-arousal learners given the fact that children do not only feel, but also taste
the arousal when playing against the rules (Agina & Kommers, 2008). From a practical point of view, the
present study tried to convey the violent arousal when young children start playing with violent games into their
learning setting to achieve some learning tasks. Therefore, the present study tried also to convey the childrens
nonviolent arousal from their learning settings into violent environment where children start play with violent
games. In both cases, the present study tried to explore whether there is an effect of the violent vs. nonviolent
arousal on childrens development when children act alone (i.e., without an external regulator) in both
environments. However, the present study does not precisely count the extent the children regulate themselves
during the violent and nonviolent arousal in both groups. Instead, it only shows whether there is an indication of
the effect of the violent vs. nonviolent arousal on childrens self-regulation (this limitation is very challenged
and motivated for the future work).
787 Adel M. Agina and Robert D. Tennyson / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 69 ( 2012 ) 780 789
The present study confirmed the conclusion of the previous study by Agina and Kommers (2008). Despite
the negative effect of playing violent games, violent arousal has positive effect on childrens development
especially self-regulation and thinking aloud. Thus, the most significant question for the future research on
childrens development is that: How can violent arousal be safely transferred into childrens learning settings to
enable children to be Violent-Arousal-Learners through Violent-Arousal-Learning (VAL)? In other words,
the future work should focus on the following questions: what is VAL and how can VAL be applied?
8. References
Adachi, P. & Willoughby, T. (2011). The effect of violent video games on aggression: Is it more than just the
violence? Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16 (2011), 5562
Agina, A. M. (2008). Towards understanding self-organization: How self-regulation contributes to self-
organization?. International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning,
18(3), 366379.
Agina, A. M. & Kommers, P. A. M. (2008). The Positive Effect of Playing Violent Games on Childrens Self-
regulation Learning. IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (pp.
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